Veterans arrived back home from the war with Mexico, "broken down, out of health and dispirited- many minus an arm or leg destined to be cripples all their life."

Border Crossing

2017

16.5 x 22 x 5 inches

Ceramics

Poilu

2017

14 x 16 x 5.5 inches

Ceramics

Le Petit Mort

2017

10 x 15 x 10 inches

Ceramics, Mixed Media

Snowblind

Sir John Franklin’s Expedition left England with 129 men to traverse the North-West passage, vanishing off the coast of Greenland in the year 1845. After 3 years trapped in the Arctic, the men were forced to initiate what could most appropriately be called a death march. They carried with them all the accouterments of English civilization – fine china and cut glass, Victorian silver, bibles and button polish. The prevailing attitude was “They perished gloriously.” All that remained of the best equipped expedition ever sent in search of the Northwest Passage were stark skeletons found in the snow years later, their attempt to conquer the arctic a sad testament to the hubris of mankind.

Female Equality:The Last Moments of Martha Place

(Detail 1)

2016

Ceramics, wood, leather, metal

13 x 11 x 8

Martha Place, the Stuyvesant Heights-based "giantess" would earn the dubious distinction of being the first female sentenced to die in the electric chair. Marthahad, to utilize a phrase from the lexicon of the day, gone slightly, “off her trolley”, burning her stepdaughter Ida’s eyes with acid before forcing the girl to drink the poison and, when that failed, hacking her to death with an axe. Vilified by the newspapers as "homely, old, ill-tempered, not loved by her husband," there was little sympathy for Martha's plea of insanity. "It was a murder so shocking," said one journalist, "that nothing worse could be thought of -- that is to say, only one thing worse could be thought of, and that was the electric killing of the old woman." Teddy Roosevelt, governor at the time, refusing to be swayed by what he called "mawkish sentimentality," denied a stay of execution. After the first jolt, the Hancock Street Murderess was gone. It was, per the prison doctor at Sing Sing, "the best execution that has ever occurred here."